By: Mark Harris (Wired Backchannel)
From the article:
The scale of Palantir's implementation, the type, quantity and persistence of the data it processes, and the unprecedented access that many thousands of people have to that data all raise significant concerns about privacy, equity, racial justice, and civil rights. But until now, we haven't known very much about how the system works, who is using it, and what their problems are. And neither Palantir nor many of the police departments that use it are willing to talk about it. In one of the largest systematic investigations of the company to date, Backchannel filed dozens of public records requests with police forces across America. When Palantir started selling its products to law enforcement, it also laid a paper trail. All 50 states have public records laws providing access to contracts, documents, and emails of local and government bodies. That makes it possible to peer inside the company's police-related operations in ways that simply aren't possible with its national security work.Read more: full text
Republican senator Jeff Flake:
It was we conservatives who rightly and robustly asserted our constitutional prerogatives as a co-equal branch of government when a Democrat was in the White House but who, despite solemn vows to do the same in the event of a Trump presidency, have maintained an unnerving silence as instability has ensued.
If ultimately our principles were so malleable as to no longer be principles, then what was the point of political victories in the first place?
A good profile of Stripe and the Collison brothers. They've always been a company I've respected, particularly with projects like Atlas making it easier for entrepreneurs to start digital businesses.
Nobody wants to deliver late, over-budget software. I don't know a single software developer who wakes up in the morning and thinks "I'd like to do a rubbish job today. How can I cost my employer more money?" And yet, so many software projects don't go well. And with every new project, there seems to be more and more pressure to go faster. So, if we're in the business of making software, what do we do? How do we go faster without compromising quality?
[...] Don't tell me that there's something uniquely demanding about building yet another fucking startup that dwarfs the accomplishments of The Origin of Species or winning five championship rings. It's bullshit. Extractive, counterproductive bullshit peddled by people who either need a narrative to explain their personal sacrifices and regrets or who are in a position to treat the lives and wellbeing of others like cannon fodder.
See also "Exponential growth devours and corrupts" and "RECONSIDER".
Why would God create the heart to be so tender and yet allow it to be exposed to such an intense variety of life experiences? A fully lived life requires a fully-experienced life. Without both joy and sorrow, peace and turmoil, happiness and despair, you cannot fully appreciate any one experience. For a life to be fully lived, it must be experienced in every extreme. The extent to which we are capable of experiencing great disappointment and pain is also the extent to which we have the capacity to experience the greatest joy. God wired us for fullness, and our hearts require full exposure for real, authentic life to flow. While we would never choose the extreme moments, they are part of the plan of God.
— Marc Owings and David Terry, The Original Sanctuary
By His grace, we are water made wine, we are the dust made flesh made dust made flesh again. We are the whores made brides and the thieves made saints and the killers made apostles. We are the dead made living.
— N.D. Wilson, Living by Death
The proof-of-concept exploit uses a low-cost transmitter to embed malicious commands into a rogue TV signal. That signal is then broadcast to nearby devices. It worked against two fully updated TV models made by Samsung. By exploiting two known security flaws in the Web browsers running in the background, the attack was able to gain highly privileged root access to the TVs.
A short montage comparing various shots between Rogue One and the original Star Wars trilogy. Excellent work, and very cool to see some unexpected comparisons.
Rolle, 30, was the only prospective neurosurgeon in Florida State's graduating class — and also the only former NFL player and the only Rhodes Scholar.